Shadows in the Yellow Wood:
The Dark Side of Robert Frost’s Poetry
Robert Frost is one of the most widely-read and recognized poets of the twentieth century, if not all time. If his name is mentioned, it is usually followed by a reference to two roads diverged in a yellow wood and taking the one less traveled by. But lurking in the shadows of the yellow wood of Frost’s poetry are much deeper meanings than are immediately apparent. As the modern poet Billy Collins says in his “Introduction to Poetry”, in order to find the true meaning of a poem we must “…hold it up to the light/ like a color slide” instead of “…beating it with a hose/ to find out what it really means” (1-16). When Frost’s poems are held up to the light, it is revealed that they contain the very themes of existence, themes which happen to be very dark indeed. Robert Frost uses simple language and images from nature in his poetry to explore the dark realities of life: destruction, humanity’s thirst for truth, and the temptation to submit to evil.
Throughout his poems, Frost explores the inevitability of destruction. It is a fact of life that all things end. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, in which he uses the natural images of fading dawn and turning leaves to convey the fleeting beauty of life:
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. (5-8)
The entire poem is only eight lines long and the words used are quite simple, but Frost chooses each word carefully. Kay Ryan, a poet and Pulitzer Prize winner, discusses this poem’s quickness and peculiar word choice in her Poetry Magazine article “Laugh While You Can”: “We’re done for so fast we can’t stop to...
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Robert Frost wrote many poems; however, one of his most popular themes involved isolation. The poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Gerber, Philip L. Robert Frost. Ed. Kenneth Eble. Boston: Twayne Publishers, Inc. 1982. The. 124-125 Lentricchia, Frank.
Robert Frost uses metaphor and symbolism extensively in ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’, developing deeper and more complex meanings from a superficially simple poem. Frost’s own analysis contributes greatly to our appreciation of the importance of metaphor, claiming that “metaphor [is] the whole of thinking,” inviting the reader to interpret the beautiful scene in a more profound way. However, the multitude of possible interpretations sees it being read as either carefully crafted lyric, a “suicide poem, [or] as recording a single autobiographical incident” . Judith Oster argues, therefore, that the social conditions individual to each reader tangibly alter our understanding of metaphor. Despite the simplicity of language, Frost uses conventional metaphors to explore complex ideas about life, death and nature. The uncertainty, even in the concluding stanza, that encompasses the poem only adds to the depth of possible readings.
Frost, Robert. "The Road Not Taken." The Poetry of Robert Frost. Ed. Edward Connery, Lathem. New York: Hot, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. 105.
Robert Frost is considered by many to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Frost’s work has been regarded by many as unique. Frost’s poems mainly take place in nature, and it is through nature that he uses sense appealing-vocabulary to immerse the reader into the poem. In the poem, “Hardwood Groves”, Frost uses a Hardwood Tree that is losing its leaves as a symbol of life’s vicissitudes. “Frost recognizes that before things in life are raised up, they must fall down” (Bloom 22).
par. 1). With clever poetic purpose, Frost‘s poems meld the ebb and flow of nature to convey
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Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Views; Robert Frost First Edition, New York et al, Chelsea House Pub., 1986.
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” provide us contrasting and sometimes similar glimpses of life. “The Road Not Taken” is about taking control and living life. “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening” entails the desire for rest, perhaps due to the speaker’s feelings of weariness from facing life’s struggles. The poet also explains the tough choices people stand before when traveling the road of life. Sometimes people regret the possibilities of the road not chosen, sometimes people feel proud about the road they have chosen.